Czerny: Complete Organ Music

Delle Chiaie, Pietro

96175

Carl Czerny (1791-1857), a famous pianist and teacher, student of Beethoven, wrote an immense oeuvre for the piano, in which his prodigious technique could be shown to the greatest advantage. His many didactical works, the Etudes, are daily fare for every aspiring young pianist, cruel but nourishing!

Czerny’s organ works include many Preludes and Fugues. The interest that Czerny nurtured for the fugue unquestionably derived from his familiarity with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection that was widely admired at the time and closely studied by the youthful Carl. The importance that Czerny attributed to a genre that was actually beginning to lose favor among audiences also relates to the fact that the Well- Tempered Clavier had likewise been fundamental for Beethoven, who was shortly to become Czerny’s teacher and in due course also his friend.

The Preludes and Fugues are the Romantic’s answer to an obsolete form, imbuing the formal counterpoint with many new keyboard devices of Czerny’s own invention.

The style of the Voluntaries is typical of Czerny, with most being two pages or shorter. They could be performed either before or after a church service, or even as a middle voluntary. They possess a melodic and harmonic charm that bridges the musical language of the more secular piano world, with which Czerny was largely associated, and the sacred environment of the parish church, or even royal chapel.

Played by Pietro Delle Chiaie at the Bonizzi-Inzoli organ of the St Michael Archangel Church, Rocca Massima, Italy, the specifications of which are included in the booklet.

Works:

•Carl Czerny: Präludien & Fugen op. 603 Nr. 1-5, 61 & op. 607
• ; Carl Czerny: Voluntaries op. 627 Nr. 1-23 & op. 698 Nr. 1-17, 19, 20

CD x 2

Brilliant Classics

31.10.24

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